North America

On Monday morning 3h30 am, the Toronto firefighters were called on Occupy Toronto site the St James Park and took a look at the small fire. The firefighters spoke to the people responsible for it, and decided not to extinguish it because it was considered a sacred fire and is being tended to by aboriginals around the clock.

The students and members from different faculties currently protest at Havard investment policies and the polarizations perceived by the student in the economic courses.
According to students there is some lack in the policy proposals from the countries political leaders, democracy is ill.
On November 10, students gather and start the occupy movement in the Harvard Yard.

The Jewish New Year has just ended and taking that opportunity to reach out to anyone who would listen, but particularly the Jewish world community, Rabbi Brant Rosen of the USA asks: “Is the Jewish establishment really able to listen to the next generation of Jews? He brings people’s attention back to what took place almost one year ago in New Orleans.

“The promotion of wars are viewed, especially by most US politicians, as the Holy Cow, more sacred than God Himself! Obama has been so much under pressure from Republicans, where their ultimate goal is to oust him from the Whitehouse, that he has compromised his principles beyond comprehension. The Republicans want to continue to protect the rich as to become even richer,

Smallholder farmers, who produce up to 80 per cent of all food in some areas, mainly in Africa, “face the risk of exploitation under contract farming arrangements with processing or marketing companies,” according to UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, who presented his annual report to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee

The winds of change are blowing across the globe. What triggers such change, and when it will strike, is something that no one can predict.

Last Jan. 18, a courageous young woman in Egypt took a dangerous step. Asmaa Mahfouz was 25 years old, part of the April 6 Youth Movement, with thousands of young people engaging online in debate on the future of their country.

The often violent response to the Occupy Wall Street campaign that is growing in the United States and elsewhere is affecting the freedom to inform. Reporters Without Borders [campaigning for press freedom] condemns the arrests of reporters in recent weeks, especially in New York where the police assume the right to decide who are journalists.

In 1967, a year before his assessination, Martin Luther King gave a speech called “Beyond Vietnam” in which he proclaimed: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.”

I was honored to be invited to speak at Occupy Wall Street on Thursday night. Since amplification is (disgracefully) banned, and everything I said had to be repeated by hundreds of people so others could hear (a.k.a. “the human microphone”), what I actually said at Liberty Plaza had to be very short. With that in mind, here is the longer, uncut version of the speech.

This October 17th-20th, representatives from over 70 countries come together for the
International Forum on the Social and Solidarity Economy (FIESS) in Montreal. With
Quebec being seen as an experimental hub for the Social Economy, it not surprising that activists
have gathered here. Today, first day of the Forum, the enthusiasm among participants
could be felt in the air.